Greenway Arts Alliance
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE: Greenway Arts Alliance is a not-for-profit organization located on the campus of Fairfax High School in Hollywood. Greenway's mission is to utilize the performing arts to build community between a broad constituency of artists, educators, community members and students; to produce inspiring professional theatre and performing arts productions that represent and reflect the rich diversity of Los Angeles; and to utilize its role in the community to serve at-risk high students through Greenway's Voices Unheard, a comprehensive in-class and after-school visual and performing arts educational outreach program. Greenway believes in the power of the arts to inspire and stimulate; it commits to passing on knowledge and experience to the next generation; it aspires for a genuine, deep engagement with its community.
Greenway was founded in 1999 by Whitney Weston and Pierson Blaetz, theatre producers living in the Fairfax district who sought to create a bridge between arts and education that could have a measurable impact on the local community. Toward this end they founded the Melrose Trading Post, an antiques and collectibles flea market held every Sunday in the Fairfax parking lot. Overseen by Greenway, operated by student volunteers and Greenway staff, and governed by the Fairfax Parents & Friends Foundation, the Melrose Trading Post raises invaluable support for student and school activities not provided for in the school budget such as student clubs, scholarships, uniforms, and field trips.
The founding of the Melrose Trading Post marked the beginning of a vital partnership between Greenway and Fairfax High. In 1999, the Los Angeles Unified School District leased Greenway an unused building on the Fairfax campus, the Greenway Court, built in 1939 as a student social hall but virtually abandoned for years. With its share of funds from the Melrose Trading Post, Greenway artists and volunteers renovated the building, transforming it into a state-of-the-art theatre, widely regarded as the most beautiful intimate theatre in Los Angeles. The Greenway Court Theatre opened its doors in 2000 with the world premiere production of Jose Rivera's Sonnets for an Old Century.
In 2001, further developing the partnership between Greenway and Fairfax High, Greenway inaugurated Voices Unheard to provide urgently needed performing arts programs for Fairfax High School students.
Greenway Arts Alliance serves as an entrepreneurial model of how a not-for-profit organization on a high school campus can build bridges throughout the community.
MELROSE TRADING POST: Greenway's Melrose Trading Post is a staunch supporter of its local community. Working in tandem with Fairfax High School administration, teachers and parents, Greenway Co-Artistic Directors, Whitney Weston and Pierson Blaetz, envisioned the Trading Post as a means for the students to make a significant contribution to their own success through raising money for school programs and increasing confidence and self-esteem.
A flea market "for the sexy, hip and groovy crowd" (Los Angeles Times) The Melrose Trading Post is held every Sunday in the parking lot at Fairfax High School, where 3,000 to 4,000 attendees browse the wares of nearly 200 eclectic vendors. Overseen by Greenway Arts Alliance and run by and for the Fairfax Family and Friends Foundation The Trading Post is widely regarded as the most successful, ongoing fundraising events in the history of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
California state budget cuts over the last 20 years have cost the Los Angeles public school system millions of dollars, which would have been allocated for the arts, after-school programs, and "luxuries" such as new computers, sports uniforms and scholarships. But thanks to this weekly fund-raising opportunity developed ten years ago, students at Fairfax High School in the Fairfax District have benefited from money for programs they themselves earned.
VOICES UNHEARD: The mandate of Greenway's Voices Unheard is to be an exemplary visual and performing arts outreach program that illuminates the necessity of a vital union between arts and education to empower at-risk youth. The results of numerous studies on education conducted in recent years by the GE Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, among others, have concluded that student involvement in the arts supports academic achievement and critical personal development, even more so for at-risk youth than "stable" youth. Greenway stands behind the belief that involvement in the arts helps motivate youth to improve scholastically, provides as impetus to stay in school and fosters creative thinking, problem solving and other essential life skills.
Fairfax High School enrolls approximately 3,000 youth, including 800 English language learners who speak 30 languages. Second to English, the most frequently spoken languages are Spanish, Korean and Russian. Fairfax High has the largest special needs program in LAUSD. Students commute and are bussed to Fairfax from areas including South Central, East Los Angeles, Baldwin Hills and Downtown.
DA' POETRY LOUNGE: In addition to its annual season of legitimate theatre, GAA sponsors "Da' Poetry Lounge", cutting-edge open mic poetry and spoken word, held Tuesday nights at GREENWAY Court Theatre.
Begun in 1999, this exciting, standing room only performance is now the largest weekly open mic event in the country, bringing together audiences which cross all ethnic and age boundaries, and providing an important forum for personal expression without criticism or judgment. Once a month, the Lounge holds "slams", or competitions, for prizes, and the opportunity to compete on the Hollywood Slam team both regionally and nationally.
Address:
Greenway Arts Alliance
544 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Phone: 323.655.7679
Fax: 323.655.7906
Web: www.greenwayarts.org
